“The Conjuring” premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on Friday night; early reviews are calling “Saw” and “Insidious” creator James Wan’s latest film a skilled reworking of the old-fashioned horror genre. Variety writes that “The Conjuring“ isWan’s best film. Warner Bros. opens the thriller stateside on July 19th.

With its clear echoes of “The Exorcist,” “The Conjuring” aims to be a classier, more reserved breed of fright film, showing almost no blood and resorting to few overtly gotcha scares… With that said, however, such quibbles may seem very minor after experiencing The Conjuring’s third act, which is incredibly intense. Wan’s finale may recall dozens of previous horror movies’, but the skill of his staging and the commitment of the performances are such that the film very confidently puts you through one hell of a wringer.

A sensationally entertaining old-school freakout and one of the smartest, most viscerally effective thrillers in recent memory… James Wan’s sixth and best feature is pull-out-the-stops horror filmmaking of a very sophisticated order, treating the story’s spiritual overtones with the utmost sincerity even as it playfully mines all manner of apparent cliches — creaky doors, cobwebbed cellars, toys you’d have to be just plain stupid to play with — for every last shiver of pleasure. What’s a moviegoer to do but join with the demons and applaud?

Wan says he set out to make a “classic studio horror film,” and at that he’s more than succeeded. With its minimal use of digital effects, its strong, sympathetic performances and ace design work, the pic harks back in themes and methods to The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror, not quite attaining the poignancy and depth of the former but far exceeding the latter in sheer cinematic beauty.